Some basic ideas to understand about "SA" or Situational awareness you must understand, is this is the most important key to winning fights, and staying alive. SA Is described as knowing what is around you at all times. Is your situation in your Favor? or Extremely Bad?
Some examples of poor SA would be you are dogfighting and latch onto someone's 6 but never check your 6. This is how most people get killed, as they fail to check their 6, they get 2-3 bad guys on them then get killed. Another thing to understand is Situational Awareness is best understood as knowing "whats around you", are the Cons high? Low? Which is the biggest threat around you?
Keep asking yourself these basic questions, it will greatly approve your chances to survive in the main arena, however you will still be killed, but learning simple rules, you can better yourself flying. Just remember some aircraft have horrible at best Rear View, you must learn to adapt to the plane you fly. Example: The F4u corsair has a terrible rear view, as you cant see behind, or below you only behind to the sides. You must learn when your checking your 6 to bank and look back. I myself get caught up on an easy kill in a furball and dont check back, this is when i go back to basics and keep my SA sharp. One way is to always keep an eye on the cons. Majority your fights wont be 1 on 1 but rather 1 on 2. There's always an enemy con close to you, with his friendly closing in far away. You must maintain an eye on the closing con, you dont need to focus on him directly but just make sure he's not a threat yet.
SA Also is described as "Awareness" - Which cons around you are a major threat? If you see a lone A6m Zeke 10k below you, you can almost garentee he's no threat till he is co-alt to you, however in this case being 10k below you he's still no threat since he's climbing to you.
You want to be aware of all cons above you, for they might try to boom and zoom, dive down and take a pass on you and zoom away.
I always classify cons above me high risk - con's co-alt a medium risk, and cons below no risk. You must also be aware of which cons is the biggest threat, if you are on the deck trying to run away and you have a Zero chasing you and a P51-D, the P51-D is most likely the biggest threat based on his speed and ability to catch you. But this all depends on which aircraft you are flying. If you are in an La7 with WEP Available, you should really be fine, as neither target is a threat. But say you are in a hurricane, your in danger of both catching you, so you must keep good SA to determine whose a bigger threat for the first few turns.
